Out actress Cynthia Nixon this week
called homeless LGBT youth the “AIDS crisis of this generation.”

The 49-year-old Nixon is best known for
playing Miranda Hobbes on HBO's Sex and the City.

She plays a cancer patient in the
upcoming film James White.

During an appearance on HuffPost Live
to promote James White, which opens Friday, Nixon shared
details about Steve, the upcoming play she is directing.

“[Steve is] also about the
identity crisis of the gay rights movement,” Nixon
said. “It's like, wow, we've come so far so fast after being
on the outside for so long, and now what?”

“Of course, you fight for these
rights and you fight for the right to assimilate if you want to, but
then once the door's open it's like, wow, do I really want to go in
there? Do LGBT people still retain their culture and retain their
identity if we just get absorbed into the mainstream?”

Nixon also commented on the state of
the LGBT community.

“I certainly think for the LGBT
community, certainly trans stuff is an enormous thing right now,”
Nixon said. “And I think how many LGBT kids we have living on the
street and doing sex work I think that's the AIDS crisis of this
generation. It's kind of a secret crisis that we've got to do much
better at even acknowledging, much less doing something about it. …
It's also trying to figure out who we are now, because, wow, you turn
around and the world looks different than it did.”